RevPAB (Revenue per Available Bed)
Definition
RevPAB measures how much revenue a coliving operation generates per bed it could rent, calculated as total revenue divided by the number of available beds over a period. Unlike revenue per occupied bed, it accounts for empty beds — making it the cleanest single metric for comparing coliving performance across properties and time.
The formula
RevPAB = Total room revenue ÷ Bed-nights available
- Total room revenue
- rent actually charged for the period, net of discounts and incentives
- Bed-nights available
- beds × days in the period, counting a bed from the day it is legally lettable
Worked example
Two ten-bed houses over a 30-day month. Both have 300 bed-nights available. House A discounts to fill; House B holds the rate.
- 01House A: 94% occupancy at £663 a month (a £780 rate cut by 15%). Room revenue ≈ £6,230.
- 02House A RevPAB = £6,230 ÷ 300 = £20.77 per available bed-night.
- 03House B: 88% occupancy at the full £780. Room revenue ≈ £6,860.
- 04House B RevPAB = £6,860 ÷ 300 = £22.87 per available bed-night.
House B earns roughly ten percent more money with six points less occupancy. An occupancy-only dashboard shows House A winning; the bank account shows House B.
RevPAB is the coliving equivalent of RevPAR, which hotels adopted forty years ago for exactly the same reason: occupancy alone rewarded managers for giving rooms away. Any metric that moves when you discount, and only when you discount, is a metric that will eventually be discounted into.
Track it alongside occupancy and read the pair. Occupancy up and RevPAB up means real demand. Occupancy up and RevPAB flat or falling means you bought the occupancy, and you should know the price you paid. Occupancy down and RevPAB up means you traded volume for rate — often the correct call in a soft market, and one that looks like failure on an occupancy-only report.
It is also the number that travels best to investors. An occupancy claim without a disclosed denominator gets discounted by anyone reading it seriously; a RevPAB series with the bed-night denominator shown is taken at face value.
The common mistake
Using beds instead of bed-nights
Dividing revenue by bed count rather than bed-nights available produces a number that ignores the days a room sat empty between two residents. In a product where stays end in every month of the year, those gaps are continuous rather than seasonal, and the bed-count version hides them entirely.
Frequently asked
What is a good RevPAB for a coliving property?+
There is no published benchmark, because no listed pure-play coliving operator exists to produce one. The useful comparison is your own building against itself over time, and against your rent card: RevPAB should track toward your full asking rate as occupancy stabilises.
Is RevPAB the same as revenue per occupied bed?+
No, and the difference is the point. Revenue per occupied bed ignores empty beds entirely, so a half-empty building at full rate looks identical to a full one. RevPAB divides by beds available, which is why it captures both rate and occupancy in a single number.
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